Technical drawings, like architectural plans and engineering blueprints, are the chief working papers in building design and in many other industrial design activities. Part of their use pattern is the need for the folding of such large dimension documents for storage in file cabinets, and for their ready insertion and dispatch in standard sized mailable envelopes. When such drawings are folded or compacted, the title or information legend block is generally desired to appear on the outermost panel of the newly folded document. This is desired whether or not the information legend was originally located in the lower right hand corner, or was placed elsewhere on the document margin.
Given the variability in document dimensions, and the like variation in the document legend placement, a plethora of folding pattern sequences so as to compact a document to mailing envelope size, preferably as noted with the top panel having the title legend, are created.
Heretofore, formed board templates, and the like, have been used to make the multiple folds and to speed the work of compacting for storing or mailing. Folding devices now available are unduly complicated to master, or leave too much to the discretion of clerical personnel in meeting the stated goals for document compaction. One elaborate device for folding large sheet documents or foils is a machine requiring reciprocating folding sticks, which is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,241,829 [Acher].
Another mechanized approach is shown in the sheet folding method and apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 4,826,212 [Muth]. This involves fabricating from tailored plate elements (of somewhat variable configuration) a planar mosaic that constitutes an upper and lower folding template. The variable size plate elements then correspond to preset fold configurations desired to be impressed into the sheet-like document. This is a complicated and limited scope solution to large document overall size reduction.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide an uncomplicated device that is readily fabricated, and which will permit handy reduction into compacted formats suitable for either filing or mailing, of large-dimension technical documents, which are not functionally useful in only reprographically reduced layouts.
Another object is to provide an ambulatory document folding device which can be interruptably mounted at a plurality of sites, and is also adapted to compacting flexible documents of a wide range of size dimensions.
A further object of this invention is to not only provide an article for document compacting, but one which can conveniently serve for information inscription on a board having an erasable surface, similar in practice to the schoolroom blackboard and chalk.
These and other advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following description of a currently preferred embodiment, and from the claims and drawings.